Wrongful conviction contributed to Post Office worker’s death, says widow
A former Post Office operator’s wrongful conviction over missing funds “massively contributed” to his early death, his widow has said.
On an emotional third day of evidence in the inquiry into an IT scandal at the company, former Post Office workers said their lives “fell apart” and they were left feeling “worthless” and shunned after being wrongfully convicted. Some have called for the company’s former management to be jailed.
Julian Wilson was one of more than 700 post office operators prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 based on information from the Horizon IT system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu. He ran a post office in Astwood Bank, Worcestershire, where auditors found more than £27,000 missing in the branch accounts.
After being suspended in September 2008 and charged with false accounting and theft, he was left little choice but to take a plea deal to avoid prison, said his widow, Karen, and he was sentenced to community service and given a confiscation order for the missing money.
After that he was unable to find work, their assets were frozen and she ended up pawning her belongings including her engagement ring to get by. Her husband “couldn’t face it” and “just hid himself for about a year”, she said, and he would sometimes “just fall apart and talk about suicide”.
Wilson died of bowel cancer in 2016. His conviction was overturned in April 2021. His wife had promised him to fight to vindicate him. “He was only 67. I never said that this did kill him but it did massively contribute, definitely.”
Earlier in the day the inquiry heard from William Graham, 53, who managed the Riverhead sub-post office near Sevenoaks. He was convicted for the concealment of supposed losses of £65,521 in January 2011 and received a
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